posted July 14, 2000 03:28 AM            

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Vets Push For Action On Steroid 'Disgrace'

By Mark Forbes

Published: Thursday, July 13, 2000

Australian steroid exports are a national disgrace and should be banned, the Australian Veterinary Association has told a meeting of the Federal and State governments in Perth.

The association's vice-president, Dr Garth McGilvray, said the abject failure of the governments to do anything tangible was damaging Australia's reputation as a crusader against drugs in sport.

"Perhaps our last chance to save face will be when the Ministerial Council on Drugs Strategy meets tomorrow," he said. "The AVA urges all the governments represented there to finally do something meaningful to stop the flow of these drugs onto the world market."

The council is likely to consider controls on steroid exports, limits on steroid production and a taskforce to investigate steroid abuse.

It was revealed last weekend that Australia was a leading supplier to the steroid black market. Federal authorities were certifying and endorsing steroids destined for the illicit trade.

Dr McGilvray said three years of warnings to government had only produced "bureaucratic waffle".

Steroid exports should be stopped outright, he said. The next-best option would be a proper system of export licensing to ensure ongoing checks of shipments - and their real destinations - could be made.

"Less than 100 days before the opening of the Sydney Olympics, Australia is still flooding exports of locally manufactured or processed veterinary drugs to third-world countries known to be supplying the sporting black market. This is a national disgrace," Dr McGilvray said.

He found it bizarre that the Australian organisation charged with ensuring medications were safe and effective, the National Registration Authority, was certifying the quality of drugs being exported onto the illicit market, increasing their value on those markets.

"Surely somebody in authority ought to feel embarrassed that the NRA is in a legal situation where it is effectively required to ensure that these veterinary drugs are of acceptable quality, and then sits by as they are exported in large quantities to be misused in humans."

Victoria's Police Minister, Mr Andre Haermeyer, will call today for an investigation into criminal involvement in trafficking performance- and image-enhancing drugs. He will also push for a Commonwealth-led taskforce, which would be charged with cutting the illicit supply.

The NSW Government will demand the Commonwealth introduce export controls on steroids.

A spokesman for the NSW Health Minister, Mr Knowles, said there was concern at the lack of Federal action on steroids.

The council is made up of all Australian health, justice and police ministers. A separate meeting of police ministers is also likely to consider steroid issues.

A report on performance- and image-enhancing drugs, which the council commissioned from the National Expert Advisory Committee on Illicit Drugs last year, will be considered at today's meeting.

The report recommends export controls on steroids and possible limits on production. It also suggests a monitoring system to establish the extent of steroid use and the harm associated with it.

The expert committee found that organised crime was increasingly involved in the trade, and that Australian steroids were flooding the local and international black markets. The report describes Australia as the veterinary anabolic steroid capital of the world.

A NSW Government spokesman called for the report to be made public, and for its recommendations to be implemented.

"There is clearly a need for a major Federal crackdown on the export of these drugs to other countries," he said.

Some areas of the Federal Government are understood to be supporting a pharmaceutical industry campaign against the regulation of export steroids.

The world's biggest buyer of Australian steroids, Mr Alberto Salthiel, said it was not his problem that his steroids were sold in bulk to American teenagers, as Mexican law allowed it.

His company, Denkal, bought nearly 15 per cent of Australia's total steroid production from Sydney-based manufacturers.

posted July 14, 2000 03:45 AM            

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Lift until u can't...... and then some.